A very small aperture terminal (VSAT) is a two-way satellite ground station that accesses satellites in geosynchronous orbit to relay information from small remote earth stations (e.g., terminals) to other terminals in mesh configurations, or to a master earth station (e.g., a hub device) in star configurations. VSAT-based networks are most commonly used to transmit narrowband data (e.g., point of sale transactions) or broadband data for the provision of satellite Internet access, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), etc. to remote locations.
A private IP satellite network is a VSAT network that utilizes a deterministic time division multiple access (D-TDMA) platform to provide a connection between remote VSATs and a private IP network. The private IP satellite network includes a satellite hub device connected to a large satellite antenna and transmitter that transmits a large out-route carrier. The large out-route carrier is received at the remote VSATs by much smaller antennas. The smaller antennas of the remote VSATs require small-sized in-route carriers so that the remote VSATs can consistently transmit information to the satellite hub device. Since the out-route carrier is a large single carrier, the satellite hub device may manage bandwidth by accounting for bandwidth that is allocated to a group of remote VSATs. The satellite hub device may allocate the bandwidth by utilizing a calculated method that takes into account an oversubscription ratio, an absolute method that reserves an absolute bandwidth on the out-route carrier, or a combination of the two methods.
However, with the use of the D-TDMA platform, current satellite hub devices are unable to manage burstable bandwidths and overall bandwidth pool reservation associated with the in-route carriers. This is due to the fact that the in-route carriers are relatively small in size compared to the out-route carrier (e.g., an out-route carrier may be larger than eighteen (18) megabits per second (Mb/s) while in-route carriers are typically less than two (2) Mb/s), and to the fact that each remote VSAT requires some portion of a time slot to maintain the remote VSAT in the VSAT network.